With Good Intent
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: postep 'Mercy' Cabot thinks about the trial and the question she asked at the end of it.


"What if it was your daughter? What would you have done?"

It was a stupid question, she muses as she sits in her office, staring off into nothingness. Two years as the Special Victims Unit's ADA have taught her a lot of things, but they have not taught her everything. If there is one thing Alexandra Cabot knows, it is that there is still much to learn. And this latest case has been one of those heartbreaking lessons.

This world, she thinks, is getting out of hand. And indeed, it is. She wonders silently whether or not there will ever be a limit to the amount of evil a person can do, and she doubts it. Then again, this case was not borne of malice or ill-will. It was borne of a mother wanting nothing more than for her child than to escape a lifetime of suffering…a lifetime that would have ended before the five-year mark. But the fact remains that this child's mother still broke the law.

Alexandra finds it confusing that so many things can seem morally right and yet be legally wrong. She figures that she has brought all of this upon herself by her decision to become a prosecutor, and she is right. The life of a prosecutor, she muses, is a lot more complicated than it appears. And indeed it is. Alexandra looks at the paperwork on her desk and tries to concentrate, but the details of this particular case keep coming back to her. She knows that it will probably not stop until she takes the time to analyze the whole thing herself, and so she leans back in her seat again to think.

People almost always begin with good intent, she says to herself, it is just what happens after they begin that determines the outcome. She wonders whether or not things would have turned out this way had the child had a different father. And then she doubts it. Yes, genetics had something to do with this case, but it was for a completely different reason. And despite Alexandra's knowledge of everything that has to do with the law, she admits to herself that she did, on some level, agree with the mother of the child. After all, no mother in her right mind would want her child to suffer.

A precedent, she realizes, is more of a pain in the ass than she thought, and even though a good number of her cases in SVU have been precedents in the courtroom, it is still a pain. Especially when the case involves a child. Alexandra knows that the detectives she works with tend to be harder on those who hurt children than they are on any of the other suspects that come through their squad room. And it is with good reason. A child, someone might say, is the world's greatest natural resource, and it is no secret that the entire unit, herself included, agrees. Perhaps that is why this case has been so sickening: their victim was an infant.

As Alexandra continues to think about this, she realizes that the mother was probably right, even if the law says she wasn't. It goes against everything that she has been taught to believe, and yet she thinks it anyways. If a child were to die of a disease before her fifth birthday, what is the point of letting her continue living? Alexandra muses to herself that there _is_ no point, but the law says there is. Then again, the law is blind to emotion, it sees what is right, and it sees what is wrong. It is what it is and nothing more. Now, if the law were a person, Alexandra thinks, perhaps it would better understand the world around it. But, as it is, the law is not a person, and she is an officer of the law; therefore, she does her job and says nothing.

The detective that stopped her outside the courthouse after the trial is one that she works with. And it is because of Detective Munch, she thinks, that this whole damn thing has come to light again. If he had not said anything, her question to him would not be lingering with her. But he had, and it does, and so she sits here, continuing on her silent mental quest for her own answer. She knows why he stopped her. Tay-Sachs, the disease that this child happened to have been afflicted with is common, but rare at the same time, to those of his particular ancestry. And she knows that this case was particularly trying for him because of this. So she continues to think, to explore her own mind for an answer that most likely will not come for quite some time.

After a while, Alexandra leans forward again and picks up a pen, examining the paperwork left over from the last case, the paperwork that she has been putting off because as responsible as everyone assumes she is, she hates doing it. But it is there, and it is a chance to take her mind off of everything else, and so she begins, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear to keep it out of her eyes. And as determined as she is to forget the whole thing and leave it behind her, in the past where it belongs, Detective Munch's answer to her question remains stuck in the back of her mind.

"Anything I could have."

A/N: And I'm about three years too late for this to come along, come September anyways, but I find that post-eps for seasons past always come to me when I write late at night, which isn't really a good idea, but here it is: my sadly belated post-ep for Mercy. I don't know where the heck this came from, it just popped up, and I haven't seen the episode in a while, so forgive me if some of the details are blurry. Anyways, I am quite sure that you people all know the drill by now: SVU is not mine, and as much as I wish it was, it never will be.


End file.
